Google Buys Songza in a Move Much Bigger Than Apple Rivalry

A few months after Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) acquisition of Beats Music, Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) has announced a music service acquisition of its own. In a post on the Google Play Google+ page, Google announced its acquisition of Songza, a music streaming platform which it characterizes as a “a great service which uses contextual expert-curated playlists to give you the right music at the right time.” The acquisition gives Google a streaming service to match Apple’s iTunes Radio and Amazon’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) Prime Music.

No immediate changes to Songza are planned, so the service will continue to work “like usual” for current Songza users on Android and iOS. The company does have plans to integrate Songza’s services into its two other music apps, Google Play Music and an upcoming YouTube streaming service. Google wrote: “Over the coming months, we’ll explore ways to bring what you love about Songza to Google Play Music. We’ll also look for opportunities to bring their great work to the music experience on YouTube and other Google products.” The price for the acquisition has not been disclosed.

Songza, which launched in 2010, has gathered only 5.5 million users versus Pandora’s (NYSE:P) 75 million and the 40 million each gathered by Spotify and Apple’s iTunes Radio, according to TheWall Street Journal. However, the service is best known for its ability to account for a user’s location, the time of day, or the day of the week in its curation of custom playlists. The 40-person team behind Songza will join Google, according to the Journal. Mashable reports that the company will move to Google’s New York offices this summer.